Astroturfing Congress

A group of 535 men and women, ranging in age from the last glimmer of youth to the golden years, are frequent targets of liars, fakers and assorted swindlers. But don't waste any sympathy on them. The victims go by the name of Congress, and they are only too happy to be gulled by the slickest conmen in the land--operators of phony "grass-roots" organizations that push selfish private agendas.

I refer, of course, to what has become known as astroturfing, as in the faux grass that curses stadiums across the land. Astroturf groups serve a variety of companies, trade associations and unions, and encompass all points of the political compass. The aim is simple: to deceive Congress and regulatory agencies into believing that there is a groundswell of public concern about their pet issues.

Like genuine grass-roots groups, Astroturf organizations bring forth a blizzard of letters, phone calls and e-mails. The difference is that Astroturf groups are little more than paid shills for special interests.

Ethical public relations practitioners are working hard to curb astroturfing. But PR industry self-policing is not enough. To thoroughly delouse this creepy practice, Congress must show some guts, and that just hasn't happened. On Jan. 18, the Senate knuckled under to pressure group lobbying, and removed from ethics legislation a provision that would shine the hot light of disclosure on lobbyists who fund Astroturf groups. The fight is not over--and it must be won.

Astroturf groups were a favorite tool of Jack Abramoff, and inflated fees for such groups, channeled to his associate Michael Scanlon and kicked back to Abramoff, were central to the rip-off scheme for which both pleaded guilty. Abramoff and Scanlon are gone, but their spirit lives on.

One notable example of astroturfing is the Save Our Species Alliance, which was established in 2005 to "reform" (Washingtonspeak for "gut") the Endangered Species Act to benefit big landowners and timber companies. As the newsletter Environmental Science and Technology pointed out, SOSA's executive director and lobbyist had longstanding ties to the timber industry. Public Citizen, which has been fighting Astroturf groups, rightly called SOSA's name Orwellian.

Such consumer-friendly names are typical of Astroturf groups. Project Protect was another supposed tree-hugger group with a similar agenda, and hidden ties to tree-chopping interests.

Some Astroturf groups don't bother to spend the few bucks needed for an office and receptionist. Project Protect, for instance, used a Mail Boxes, Etc., address as its "office."

Another Astroturf group, this one targeting the Securities and Exchange Commission, doesn't even have an address--not so much as a post office box. Thats the National Coalition Against Naked Shortselling, which pushes the agenda of crummy public companies by advancing "stock counterfeiting" conspiracy theories.

NCANS registers its Web site through an anonymous domain service, and contributions must be sent to a law firm's escrow account. Even its submissions to the SEC have no return address, and one of its SEC comment letters was signed by a pseudonymous blogger.

Astroturf groups act this way because, unlike real grass-roots groups that want you knocking on their door, their whole setup is a façade--as fake as the Old West set on a Hollywood backlot. Phony as they often are, Astroturf groups have a corrosive effect on public opinion. A classic example of that occurred in the mid-1990s, when health insurance companies spent $17 million on TV advertisements laundered through "public" front groups, which helped to torpedo President Clintons health care plan.

Such campaigns would have far less clout if these groups were forced to disclose whoever is paying the tab. Congress, certainly, has a right to know the source of all those cards and letters that keep coming in--and if Congress doesn't care, the rest of us certainly should, because Astroturf groups speak in our name.

Some have the gall to put the word "consumer" in their title. Consumers For Cable Choice, for instance, bills itself as a consumer advocacy group, fighting against cable TV companies, but has received backing from
Verizon
and
AT&T
.

Hands Off The Internet is another aggressive, well-funded group pushing the agenda of the big telcos. Cable TV companies have Astroturf groups of their own, such as Keep It Local New Jersey, a creature of the New Jersey Cable Telecommunications Association.

The opacity of Astroturf groups would have been pierced--at least to a limited extent--by Section 220 of the ethics legislation that passed the Senate (sans Section 220) on Jan. 18. This provision would have targeted paid efforts to stimulate grass-roots lobbying of Congress, and required registration of outfits promoting supposed "grass-roots" campaigns when spending or getting $25,000 per quarter.

The bill wasn't perfect. It would have covered the very largest paid-shill-funding operations, but let smaller firms off scott free. It would not have explicitly covered regulatory agencies, which request public comment during rulemaking proceedings--leaving themselves open to astroturfing.

James Benton, director of ethics at Common Cause, tells me that Section 220, had it survived, might have been able to cover regulators if so interpreted by the clerk of the House and secretary of the Senate, which administer lobbyist registration. Perhaps. But an explicit, strong provision governing astroturfing of regulators would be far preferable.

The "credit" for torpedoing Section 220 goes to Utah Republican Robert F. Bennett, but he had plenty of help--and not just from the 54 other senators, including presidential hopeful John McCain, who voted to kill it.

Apart from small religious and conservative groups, a major voice against Section 220 was the normally sensible American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU maintained that Section 220 would have imposed "onerous reporting requirements that will chill constitutionally protected activity." The ACLU said that "the thrust of the grass-roots lobbying regulation is at best misguided, and at worst would seriously undermine the basic freedom that is the cornerstone of our system of government."

It's hard to fathom how groups with misleading names, funded by hidden stacks of special-interest dollars, deserve some kind of retroactive pat on the back from the Founding Fathers. Indeed, it is the Astroturf groups that pervert our legislative process, not efforts to rein them in.

The ball is now in the court of the House of Representatives, which is expected to consider reviving Section 220 in some form. The bill, I'm told, is now being drafted. Let's hope a strong, forthright disclosure provision, covering lobbying of Congress and regulatory agencies, is part of whatever the House considers. Then let's see an up-and-down vote, so we can see which of our lawmakers want to know the sources and funding of the letter-writing campaigns that descend upon them--and which are only too happy to be swindled.

Gary Weiss has covered business for more than 20 years as an investigative reporter and author. His latest book is Wall Street Vs. America: The Rampant Greed and Dishonesty That Imperil Your Investments. He blogs regularly at www.garyweiss.blogspot.com.